The 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) reptile, called Dibamus dalaiensis, is the first of its kind discovered in the Southeast Asian country. The animal joins more than 200 legless lizard species and about 50 other new reptiles discovered worldwide in the past decade.

"At first I thought it was a common species," Thy said in a press release. "But looking closer, I realized it was something I didn't recognize."

New species have been pouring out of the Cardamom region in recent years, because the mountains had been closed off to researchers until the 1990s.

"We hardly know anything about this area or the animals in it, since it was a region formerly held by the Khmer Rouge," said conservation biologist Jenny Daltry, also of Fauna & Flora International.

Khmer Rouge was the Communist movement that controlled Cambodia from 1975 to '79 and was active as a guerrilla force for decades afterward. The final Khmer Rouge stronghold fell to the Cambodian government in 1998. (Related: "'Killing Fields' Lure Tourists in Cambodia.")

In the Cardamom Mountains, "the first survey of animal life wasn't until ten years ago, and [Thy] keeps coming back with amazing new discoveries," Daltry told National Geographic News.

"Those adaptations are simply a waste of energy when you're working your way through underground tunnels," Daltry said.

Little is known about D. dalaiensis at this point, but scientists say it may navigate by its nose to hunt for earthworms, ants, and termites.

"We really only know its name. It may be a species that's very rare," Daltry said.

"As far as we know, it's found in one little place on a mountain on Cambodia, which is under a lot of threat from logging, land cessations, and other habitat destruction. The danger with these species is that they may be discovered one year and go extinct the next."

The new legless lizard is described in the April 21 issue of the journalZootaxa.